Our dressers and wardrobes have been sold. But those are 4 pieces of furniture that will not be replaced, because we built an open wardrobe in the bedroom.
One thing I loved, loved, loved about the open storage in the kitchen is how much easier it is to keep everything neat and orderly.
I know, it’s weird. It’s not like opening a cabinet door is that much work. I don’t understand how or why it’s so much easier…it just is.
An issue we struggled with in keeping the bedroom tidy is piling things on any available surface (dresser tops, nightstands, etc). When there is no surface available, we won’t have the option to be lazy, so we should suck it up and put stuff away, where it belongs. Hopefully.
While our closet is mostly finished, it still needs some adjustments, and there is still a lot of work to do in the room, so updates will continue. But we’ve been using it for a couple weeks now, and we love it so far. It almost feels like getting dressed in a boutique. And our bedroom feels so much bigger without all that furniture. Here’s what it looked like before, one more time:
Update: There are a couple things I still hear regularly from visitors about our closet. One is “It CAN’T be neat or even clean.” After living with this for over 2 years, we can say emphatically that that’s just not true. It was actually far LESS dusty, and EASIER to keep neat, and we can’t wait to re-create it in our new house.
The other question is much more positive: what materials did we use for the shelves? The shelves are made from stair treads from the home improvement store. They are thicker, deeper, and sturdier than buying wall shelves, and the edges are rounded, which looks nice. The brackets were from Anthropologie, but there are some pretty ones linked to from Amazon below. On the undersides of the shelves, we fastened wall rails from IKEA to hang the clothes from. We hung the brackets either in studs or used wall anchors, of course, because clothes are heavy.
Here are links to similar products (though treads are MUCH cheaper at the DIY store):
(Affiliate links above)
Anonymous
April 14, 2014 at 10:39 amLooks fabulous. You have pared down your clothes significantly. I’m not sure many would be able to live with so little. (I do, but it isn’t all that common!) Where do you keep your unmentionables? Alana in Canada
Christina
April 14, 2014 at 12:49 pmAh, I forgot to mention the unmentionables. 🙂 They are in the baskets on the shelves.
Kate
August 25, 2016 at 4:13 pmWhere did you find these shelves?
Christina
August 25, 2016 at 9:25 pmKate, they are stair treads from Home Depot that are fastened to wall brackets. And for the clothing rails, we screwed IKEA rails to the bottoms of the shelves.
Abbe PB
April 14, 2014 at 10:59 amPsychology woman to the answer: Our brains are notoriously lazy, in an “out of sight, out of mind” sort of way. If there isn’t something pressing in front of us that demands we act, it takes a (comparatively) enormous amount of energy to override the autopilot that pushes us to conserve energy and effort for more important tasks (e.g. finding food, avoiding predators, staying alive). Open shelving like you’ve created (which looks amazing, by the way) helps remove many of the barriers to creating new habits, by placing reminders in front of you so you expend far less energy trying to “remember” to hang up your clothing and keep it organized, leaving you with more energy to actually do it.
Christina
April 14, 2014 at 1:08 pmThat’s really interesting. So apparently the “trick” to getting things done is to have them in front of you? Glad to know I’m not just lazy! 😉 Very cool, thank you for explaining!
Cher
April 14, 2014 at 11:18 amWell there’s still the surface of the floor. It looks like you have less clothes than hubby! I could do that but…
Seriously it looks great and I know what you mean about it being easier to keep in order. Great job!
Christina
April 14, 2014 at 1:11 pmYes, still room for the floordrobe. 🙂 Hubs has always had more clothes than me. Thanks, mom!
Magali@TheLittleWhiteHouse
April 14, 2014 at 2:17 pmI’m in awe! It does look like a very chic boutique!
Christina
April 16, 2014 at 7:35 am🙂 Thanks, Magali!
Leena
April 14, 2014 at 2:25 pmAbbePB explained it so well!
Genius idea to use open shelving, I was first thinking that it would not work for us, but we have sliding doors on our clothes cabinet and how often are those doors closed? Never! So it’s practically open storage, but has a less open feel, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
What has helped us keeping clothes in the cabinet is that we no longer have any furniture where to pile things. Which you now have removed too.
Christina
April 16, 2014 at 7:34 amI was thinking about the ladder you used to use! I tried to get the old wooden one we had to use either for clothes or shoes, but it was rotten.
Leena
April 17, 2014 at 3:56 pmWe still use the ladder and it’s working. You can only use it for limited amount of clothes otherwise the pile will collapse 🙂 That keeps the ladder looking neat (or as neat as a ladder and pile of clothes can look)
Kiara
April 15, 2014 at 6:17 pmThat dress is so pretty!!
Christina
April 16, 2014 at 7:31 amThank you, Kiara! 🙂
homestilo
April 17, 2014 at 10:11 pmChristina, all I can say about this is, you are one gutsy lady (oh, and Bravo!)
Christina
April 18, 2014 at 9:36 amHaha! Thank you. 😉
Tammi@northoftabor
May 27, 2014 at 11:02 amThis looks great and perfectly simplified!
Helen
August 23, 2014 at 3:51 pmCan I ask where you got the wall shelves? We have been planning a similar project (dauntingly, on a larger expanse of wall) for a while but yours looks better than what I pictured in my mind… I’d be grateful for info! Beautiful outcome…
Christina
August 23, 2014 at 8:28 pmThank you, Helen! The shelves are made from stair treads from the home improvement store and the brackets are from Anthropologie. We did the same thing in our kitchen, so I have a more detailed posts here and here if you’re interested.
Kyla
August 26, 2014 at 4:51 pmI love this open look so much more than a wardrobe — it actually makes me wish I didn’t have a built-in closet so I could do this in my room 🙂
I also love the cohesive look of the wooden hangers (right now I have mismatched colored plastic hangers of various sizes and it drives me nuts). Can I ask where you purchased your hangers? I’m also curious if you built the shoe rack(s?) or if you purchased it somewhere?
Christina
August 26, 2014 at 5:11 pmAwww… 🙂 Thanks Kyla! Don’t the hangers make such a difference?! Mine are from Target, IKEA also sells wooden ones. The shelves below are actually IKEA end tables that we cut the bottoms off of so they would sit that low. Unfortunately, they don’t sell them anymore.
Karyn
September 1, 2014 at 10:20 amYou closet is beautiful. I am just adding shelves to my open closet and was wondering what you used for the hanging bars for you clothes?
Christina
September 1, 2014 at 4:51 pmThanks Karyn! They are IKEAS Bygel rails, just mounted to the bottoms of the shelves. They have been perfect (especially at $3 & 4 a piece), if you’re going to use them this way, just be sure to attach them to solid wood and not MDF shelving–that wouldn’t hold up the weight.
nancy
December 9, 2014 at 8:57 amDid you make the shelves or buy them? I’m not terribly handy but am a school teacher and trying to find affordable shelves!
Christina
December 11, 2014 at 2:03 pmHi Nancy, the shelves are stair treads from the home improvement store. The rails that the clothes are hanging from are wall-mounted rails from IKEA, they’re just screwed in to the bottoms of the shelves. So yes, they were very affordable, and very easy!